I lift the hand I still hold captive, fingers wrapped around her wrist, and bring it to my mouth. I lick and suck her fingers clean, savoring every trace of her sweet slick that I can find.
She blinks up at me, those beautiful eyes clearer and more present than they were when I first stepped into this closet. I know it’s costing her energy she doesn’t have to spare to stay with me and fight through the haze of her heat, but selfish relief rises in my veins when I realize she’s truly here. At least for this stolen moment.
“Ren…” She whimpers my name, the name only she uses. Which makes it that much more special to hear.
Noa’s hips lift to meet mine as I continue to drive into her, my knot swelling and catching at her entrance with every thrust. Each time it slips free with a wetpop, her breath hitches in that way that recks me.
“I’m here, sweet girl,” I pant, releasing her wrist to reach down and cup her too warm, clammy cheek. She nestles into the gentle touch instantly. “I’m so fucking sorry I left your side. It won’t happen again, I swear it, Noa.”
I’m still not sure she’s hearing a damn thing I’m saying, but either way, I selfishly need to get those words out.
She hums, in acknowledgment or understanding, I have no idea, before her face scrunches up. “Hurts,” she gasps through a choked sob. “It won’t stop. I need… you, alpha.”
My hand finds her hip for leverage and I increase my pace, driving into her harder than I should. Harder than her poor body looks like it can take. But it can and she eagerly and enthusiastically takes everything I offer her, desperate sounds of need escaping her parted lips with each deep slice of my cock into her.
Slick is already everywhere, coating my thighs and soaking through the top blanket beneath us.
If she didn’t need my cock inside of her like her next breath, I’d be between her legs, tongue catching every gush. The taste I got from her fingers only dampened my hunger.
I’m subconsciously aware of something dark brewing at the back of my mind. I know it’s not something I’ll be able fight off much longer before it drags me into that hazy place where nothing exists but sensation and need.
Rut.
Noa’s heat is triggering it.
My first one.
One hand stays on her hip while the other slides to her throat, my palm and fingers forming a collar. Noa’s head tips back instinctively, granting me more access, and she moans, long and a little wild, when I apply pressure. Not enough to steal her breath, just enough for her omega and wolf to understand that their alpha is here. And he’s in charge.
“Your pussy takes my fat cock so well, sweet Noa,” I murmur, fingers flexing at her neck so she doesn’t just hear the praise, she feels it. “You were built for me, weren’t you? Made to stretch wide and take every thick inch.”
Her body answers before her mind can—her innermost muscles fluttering, then clamping down hard enough to wrencha grunt from my chest and throw off my pace. She’s climbing again, teetering on that gilded edge of euphoria. And I am too.
Just a little longer.
A few more moments of restraint.
Then I’ll strike.
Hold on her throat softening, but not enough to abandon her, my fingers drift over the sensitive stretch of pale skin where my mark will soon reside. Permanently.
“I’m going to make you mine, Noa,” I tell her, promise and warning braided together. “I’m going to put my claiming mark on your pretty throat and bind us together. I’ll carve myself so deep into your soul that you’ll never again question how much I want you. How much I fucking need you, sweet girl.”
Through sheer force of will, Noa fights her way back through the haze, my words finding her in the fog she’s been drowning in. Her eyes clear again, and her hands loosen their grip on the blanket she’s been clutching.
Her fingertips burn as they trace the lines of my face.
“I’ll never not pick you, Rennick Fallamhain. In every lifetime, I’d chose you to be mine.”
That familiar swell of gratitude I’ve been carrying with me so often lately floods my chest, the kind that makes me want to drop to my knees and pray to a Goddess I’ve never known if I really believe in. Emotion crowds my throat, as the words I’ve kept buried for far too long—longer than it would have been right to say them after everything I put her through—take shape on my tongue.
I hold them in. For now.
The next time I slam my hips forward, fucking into Noa, my swelling knot catches and it takes effort to push it past her tight entrance. But it doesn’t hurt her. Instead, her breath hitches, and her head falls back as her half-lidded eyes roll backward so hard, I fear they’ll tumble right out of her head.
I only manage three more shallow thrusts, my knot keeping me locked inside her tight, wet heat, before Noa lets out a keening sound and her body breaks apart beneath me. She comes violently, her entire body shaking and thrashing as the orgasm tears through her. I grit my teeth against my own release and slide my hands behind her back, pulling her carefully up against me as I sit back on my heels. I hold her tight to my chest, hips shifting just enough to have my knot rubbing against those newly awakened, sensitive spots hidden inside her.
Her inner muscles tighten and flutter around me, and the sensation tips me over after her. Snarling as I come, my knot swells to its full size and lodges itself into that space behind her pubic bone, well and truly locking us together as I fill her. That now familiar fierce and possessive sense of pleasure I get in knowing how intimately I’ve marked her rises.
